


you've got a pretty kind of dirty face

by kavinsskys



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Drug Use, M/M, Not Happy, One-Sided Attraction, Ronan Lynch is Bad at Feelings, The Dream Thieves Spoilers, Underage Substance Use, Unrequited Love, during the dream thieves, it's not dark but it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-29 19:18:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6389827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kavinsskys/pseuds/kavinsskys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He takes the pills out of his pocket, the whole pile of them, all green and blinking up at him as if to say <em>come on, Ronan, you can take whatever you want</em>. In his mind, the <em>whatever</em> turns into a <em>whoever</em>, and he imagines Adam with his Henrietta accent and angry eyes and sad, sad mouth. But Ronan doesn't want a Prokopenko of an Adam. He's not like Kavinsky.</p><p>“He doesn’t <em>want you</em>,” Kavinsky says again, “You’re one of the only things he can have, and he doesn’t want you. You hate it.”</p><p>Kavinsky tastes like bad things, like cigarette smoke, like the drip of cocaine down the back of your throat, like stealing from somewhere until there was nothing left to take. But maybe Gansey’s advice to stay away from him had seemed more like a dare to Ronan. He was never going to stay away from Kavinsky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you've got a pretty kind of dirty face

**Author's Note:**

> i have no idea what this is but i was frustrated at the lack of good rovinsky fics that weren't just porn and yeah. takes place just after kavinsky leaves a mitsubishi and a note for ronan. yes i'm pretending ronan knows adam has a car at this stage, and that he knows what it looks like. let me live. also, i know gansey didn't really tell ronan to stay away from kavinsky but it definitely seemed like something he'd do. title from robbers by the 1975.  
> for ellie because i love them a lot nd they let me cry abt the gangsey to them <3

Ronan drives the Mitsubishi back to Kavinsky’s fairground field of cars. He’d left the keys with the note. Ronan didn’t want them, but he wanted the car even less. Gansey had told him after the party to stay away from Kavinsky, told him he was bad news. Ronan had already known that. Kavinsky isn’t there when he arrives. He parks the car along with the rest of them, trying to replicate the semi-circle pattern that came from Kavinsky’s dreams, but he’s never been the same forger Kavinsky has.

      

He takes the pills out of his pocket, the whole pile of them, all green and blinking up at him as if to say _come on, Ronan, you can take whatever you want_. In, out. Ronan’s mind jumps to Aurora and Matthew and the _whatever_ becomes a _whoever_ , and then he’s imagining Adam and his angry eyes and his sad, sad mouth and Henrietta vowels and tanned skin and – he stops himself right there. He wouldn’t. He’s not a forger like Kavinsky. He might be like him in other ways, but not like that. He wouldn’t kid himself with dream friends, dream lovers, cheap imitations of people who’ve already been. He thinks of Matthew bitterly, but he’s different, he’s _real_. Prokopenko isn’t. Ronan doesn’t want a Prokopenko of an Adam.

 

Ronan breathes deep and it’s just like Kavinsky’s dreams. In, out. He puts a green pill on his tongue and the rest in his pocket, pausing before swallowing it. He remembers Kavinsky’s voice when he’d said, _dying’s a boring side effect_ , and it repeats, bouncing off the walls of his skull. Something as mundane as death would never be exciting for someone like Kavinsky. _Dying’s a boring side effect_. Ronan wishes for another red pill. Instead, he swallows the green one. He doesn’t know what he wants to dream about. He just knows that he wants to dream.

 

* * *

 

He’s not sitting in the BMW when he wakes up, but he’s not in one of Kavinsky’s Mitsubishis either. He knows this because the windshield is impossibly square and speckled with dirt, and the door to his right doesn’t seem to match the one to his left. He sees the open hood in front of him, and when it closes Kavinsky’s there. Kavinsky always seems to be there.

“No engine,” says Kavinsky, but when Ronan turns the key it starts. Kavinsky doesn’t look surprised. Ronan steps out of the car, and it’s Adam’s, of course it is. Adam’s weird old tricolour car that had apparently belonged to Helen Gansey, but everyone knew that it never had. He’s a forger now. Ronan holds out his handful of green pills.

“Substance party?” he says. Kavinsky smiles, a wicked grin that only belongs on the face of people like him and Ronan.

“First rule of substance party is, don’t talk about substance party,” he quips, and Ronan notes idly that everything Kavinsky says seems to be an echo of something else he’s said before, but he’s dangling a plastic baggie of white powder in front of Ronan’s face. Ronan thinks of saying, _no, not that substance_ , and he remember’s Gansey’s insistent _stay away from Kavinsky_. But he’s already broken all of the rules. What difference does it make? He grins Kavinsky’s wolfish grin right back at him.

“Get in,” says Kavinksy. He means the Mitsubishi Ronan came here to drop off.

“I’d rather not,” says Ronan, and Kavinsky eyes him warily.

“Okay,” he says, and goes to Adam’s car – no, not Adam’s car, Ronan’s crappy imitation of Adam’s car – to cut up lines of the coke. Ronan says,

“Why Adam’s car?” as if it personally offends him, and maybe it does a little bit.

“All my cars are white,” replies Kavinsky, and it’s a fair point. Ronan wishes he was high enough to decide he didn’t care.

 

* * *

 

“You like trailer trash,” says Kavinsky. He’s sitting in a weird way on the hood of one of the Evos, not lazily but not exactly upright either. He kicks his foot against the bumper. Ronan can see he’s coming down, and expects him to take out that baggie again. Kavinsky doesn’t move.

“Don’t call him that,” Ronan snaps, less full of anger and more full of energy. He feels like he’ll vibrate right out of his skin. Kavinsky sneers.

“Parrish, then,” he says. He sounds bitter, Ronan realises, and he doesn’t bother wondering why because he _knows_ , “You’re in love with Adam Parrish and all of his fucking baggage, you bastard,” Ronan screws up his face at the phrase “in love with” but he doesn’t deny it. He never lies. Says instead,

“You’re _jealous_ ,” as if he’s just realised, when really he’s known for a while, since Kavinsky had said, _with me or against me_ , and Ronan had walked away, “You’re jealous of Adam,”

 

And all at once Kavinsky’s up off the hood of the Mitsubishi, crowding Ronan back against the car behind him. His copy of _Adam’s_ car. He feels like laughing. But he doesn’t, because Kavinsky is right there, right up in his face, and he’d done another line while Ronan had pointed out his jealousy. Ronan can see it on him, wide eyes, pupils blown, raw energy moving through him. Kavinsky pins Ronan by his neck and he imagines he can feel his pulse through his fingertips.

“I’m not _jealous_ ,” says Kavinsky, and if Calla had called Ronan a snake he’s sure she’d call Kavinsky much worse things, “Because I _know_ ,”

“Know what?” Ronan spits. Kavinsky is trying to make him angry and it’s working. But then, when isn’t Ronan Lynch angry? He thinks of Gansey’s voice, _stay away from Kavinsky, stay away from Kavinsky_ , and lets the words all jumble up in his head. Maybe he could dream a Ronan who’d stay out of trouble.

“Trailer trash doesn’t _want_ you,” says Kavinsky, and he smirks and Ronan wants to hit him. He doesn’t. Kavinsky’s words feel like the night horror, clawing open his arms and bleeding him out, “He doesn’t want you,” Kavinsky says again, “You’re one of the only things he can have, and he doesn’t want you. You hate it,”

 

Ronan tries to think of something clever to say to that, something along the lines of _don’t psychoanalyze me, you fucking cokehead_ , but more snakelike. More cutting. He can’t think of anything. He thinks of Gansey again. _Stay away from Kavinsky_. Thinks of Adam and Gansey leaving him for D.C. _Stay away from Kavinsky_. The reminder of Gansey’s rules in his mind won’t shut up, but Ronan thinks he can silence it for a while. He surges up and kisses Kavinsky.

 

Kavinsky tastes like bad things, like cigarette smoke, like the drip of cocaine down the back of your throat, like stealing from somewhere until there was nothing left to take. His hands have a hard grip on either side of Ronan’s neck, and Ronan’s are up the back of his tank top. Everything about the situation is uncomfortable. The handle of the tricolour car is pressed against Ronan’s spine, his palms are clammy and his mouth is dry, and he thinks Kavinsky might be trying to strangle him. But it’s preferable to the noise of his head.

 

He sags against the car, and Kavinsky follows. Ronan ends up sitting on the ground with Kavinsky half on top of him, pressing in everywhere and Ronan can barely breathe and barely think and he _loves it_. But all at once Ronan feels exhausted, like his bones were filled with helium before and now they’re filled with lead. He pushes at Kavinsky’s chest, shoves him away, says,

“What the fuck,” even though he’s the one who started it. Kavinsky just shrugs and goes back to his army of almost-identical Mitsubishi soldiers to snort more lines. Ronan wipes a hand down his face, as if to erase any trace of Kavinsky from it, but stays there sitting on the dry earth, leaning his back against the mismatched car. He thinks of the dream where Adam traced his tattoo, and then so had Kavinsky, said _I know what this is_ , and, _I know what you are_ , and made him come undone. Adam doesn’t know the full extent of what Ronan is, not really. Maybe Kavinsky could.

 

Ronan’s dreams hurt him. Kavinsky takes things from dreams and they’re hurting him. It’s not so different. They’re both hurting themselves. Ronan thinks of Gansey again. _Stay away from Kavinsky_. Then he thinks of Kavinsky. _There’s only with me or against me_. Ronan doesn’t want to be with Kavinsky. He wants to be against him, like it always had been. But maybe Gansey’s advice had seemed more like a dare to Ronan. He was never going to stay away from Kavinsky.


End file.
